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eclipsecharacter-encoding

How to change the *default* default encoding in Eclipse?

Every time a new workspace is created, Eclipse defaults to Cp1250 encoding.

Whenever I create a new branch of the project, and as result switch to a new workspace in Eclipse, I need to go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Workspace : Text file encoding and manually switch to "Other: UTF-8". If I forget this step, Eclipse mangles the UTF-8 characters in the project files.

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Can I change the default somehow, permanently, so that all new workspaces start as UTF-8 without need to switch them manually?

Solution

  • Actually, it is quite simple:

    Create a defaults.ini file in the Eclipse configuration folder. For example, if Eclipse is installed in C:/Eclipse create C:/Eclipse/configuration/defaults.ini. The file should contain:

    org.eclipse.core.resources/encoding=UTF-8

    If you want to set the line terminator to UNIX values you can also add:

    org.eclipse.core.runtime/line.separator=\n

    In eclipse.ini in the Eclipse install folder (e.g., C:/Eclipse) add the following lines:

    -plugincustomization 
D:/Java/Eclipse/configuration/defaults.ini

    You might need to play around with where you put it. Inserting it before the "-product" option seemed to work.